EARTH 24*(&A$%7HGKPOI

[capemods]

WHO: All transdimensional imPorts.
WHERE: The town of Capers.
WHEN: October 24th, noon, to October 29th, noon.
WARNINGS: Probably violence, but alert me if something else evolves and I can update this.
SUMMARY: Lachesis pulls a group of Cityverse imPorts into another world adventure -- here be the wilds of the west, and dinosaurs!
FORMAT: As you please!



You arrive at the town of Capers from one split second to the next -- from the asphalt and concrete of the City to the dusty and earthen dirt of this wildwood space. The sun is hot and the sky is streaked with thin clouds. The landscape of the town is sparse, utilitarian; you'll find saloons and dance halls, quarries and fenced corrals, the local gaol and the hanging scaffold, the shops and medical facilities (barbershop included). In fact, the logwood architecture of the buildings direct into those four major categories, and the structure of the town forms something circular, much like a compass. You might have been ported in at any of these places, as Lachesis would have delivered you at random.

The sun in the sky burns a golden yellow, peering down at you like some celestial eyeball. Almost feels like it's watching you.

You're wearing your clothes and you've got your communicator on you, but that's about it. You can still contact the Network, but you cannot leave this world. And since you look like such an outsider, it takes only a few moments for you to be ushered by local Samaritans to the Capers Town Hall. There, in his white suit and black belt, stands Mayor Eisner -- and he greets you warmly. He tells you that Capers is used to extradimensional pioneers, and he's happy to invite you into his town. But for a town like his to survive at this unilateral crossroads, certain customs must be observed -- you understand, there's a method of expectation that enables order. You might catch glimpses of other imPorts filing in, being escorted by the kindly souls they came across. Mayor Eisner asks you your name and your favorite color. He asks you if you're a spiritual individual, or more secular. He asks you about the first animal that comes into your mind.

Then he ponders your face for a moment.

Then, with a strong and genuine pat on your shoulder, he tells you who you are, in his town of Capers.

You are free to reject or accept the role, but that all comes with respective consequences.

Welcome to Capers, hero.

Comments

[buttpatting]

[Hannibal has, of course, done what research on it he can. Has gone through numerous network posts to glean good wheat and sift the chaff. True, there is someone he's following carefully on this Rumblr, but he's taken the time to educate himself. He's yet to experience it firsthand, and he could never say he was looking forward to it.]

I was told that there was a high percentage of those killed in the City being able to return to life. [One of the most difficult things he has yet heard.] Are you afraid of death, Gilbert, or the manner in which it might find you?

[And then, ah. Quickly—]

I apologize if that came across as prying. You don't have to answer that if you don't want to.

[invoking]

[ Gil slows down without much warning, trying not to look at Hannibal, but his shoulders squeeze close on either side of him, tension mounting. ]

No, it's —

[ He quickly shakes his head, though his voice quavers. ]

Not everyone has come back. [ He bites down on his lip. ] And at times there are consequences to the Porter bringing people back.

[buttpatting]

[He slows down, and Hannibal follows suit. He's content to let him lead for the time being, especially since he's getting information out of him. He'll take the lead when he needs to, but Gilbert's perfectly capable at the moment; what sort of caring doctor would he be to take that away from him?]

I'd heard there were times when people did not return. [That much was true, though the source had had quite the colorful vocabulary and it had been a bizarre conversation overall.] But what do you mean by consequences? What sort of consequences?

[invoking]

The last time imPorts died strange things happened to them. Their bodies were altered in some way or entirely.

[ He hadn't seen Kenzi's eyes, but she had told him enough. ]

[buttpatting]

[Something else Hannibal didn't know about, and he glances at him before putting himself back in place and looking ahead, steps careful so that he's right in line with Gilbert. The few moments it takes him to respond are justified, he thinks. It's rather startling information.]

Altered. [It's slow, as if he's trying out a new food and isn't sure how he feels about it just yet.] Do you mean missing limbs? Missing body parts? Or...something perhaps more horrific?

[Not that there's many body modifications Hannibal could imagine being more horrifying than the ones he's done himself, but nothing is impossible. Not anymore.]

[invoking]

I wouldn't say missing. [ A pause. ] Replaced with other limbs.

Like their bodies changed into something alien and got stuck that way for some time. Suddenly people had animal body parts instead of their own.

[buttpatting]

[If getting whisked away to a past time covered with dinosaurs got him this much information, Hannibal might not mind it happening too much. He'd mind the poor quality of clothes. He'd mind the lack of any really good food. He'd mind the "job" he was given. He'd mind plenty of things, certainly, but if it gave him valuable information, well.

It wasn't as though he hadn't adapted to strange things in the past, and at a much younger age when he wasn't adequately equipped to deal with it in any real manner.]

Animals? [A plethora of mythological beasts goes stampeding in his mind's eye, but he can't really bring himself to think of it quite like that. What then, tails? Ears? Something else?] People in the City have that, and it's lasted? Will last, no matter what happens?

[invoking]

For a while. They eventually returned to normal, but for about a month there were quite a few imPorts with these... problems.

[ Peter had said Jessica as fine before she had been sent back, but he often wonders. ]

[buttpatting]

[He's trying to imagine it, but he's failing. At least, he assumes he's failing. His imagination, he thinks, is a bit too morbid for even the Porter. A few difficulties with who has what arm would make more sense than what Hannibal is envisioning the longer he goes without asking.]

Do you mean...a man's legs became, say, the legs of a deer? Or a nose was replaced with a beak? Something like that?

[He can't really imagine a person could do well if their arms had been transformed into something like elephant's ears.]

[invoking]

[ Gil has a hard time imagining any of it himself in spite of the fact he's been in the City for a year and a half. He's going on two years by the time spring rolls around the corner.

Yet he still manages to find himself caught off guard by the oddities thrown at them. ]

Like that, yes. I don't know it worked or how it returned to normal. I'd say it's possible magic was in involved, but the Porter is a machine...

[buttpatting]

[Hannibal already finds the idea of actual, real, nonfictional superpowered individuals to be odd. He thought nothing really that much stranger could happen, but then they found themselves here.

Anything must be possible, then, even that which people in his world never imagined.]

You don't believe in magic? [One spot where an eyebrow would be lifts as he looks at him, a little quirk of his lips following shortly after. The question is absurd. Or, it would have been, not too long ago.] I must confess I never have, either. Then I found myself in the City, and now here. You tell me about people having the parts of animals. Perhaps anything truly is possible, even magic.

[invoking]

No, I do and I've seen all sorts here... it's different from what I've imagined. Magic isn't commonplace where I'm from.

[ It has a lot of negative connotations and those who dabble tend to seek out dark and treacherous things.

He looks to Hannibal, confused. ]

But the Porter is made from technology. That's science, isn't it? I thought magic and science weren't the same.

[buttpatting]

No, they are not. Science can be tangible in some way. With surgery, I could touch bodies and manipulate back to as healthy a manner as they could be. With astronomy, we have gained the ability to prove, without doubt, that the Earth revolves around the sun. With math, we can see numbers and equations and come to proper conclusions once they are worked out. Magic, as I have always seen in portrayed in books and movies and so forth, cannot be quantified as such. Practitioners may have various levels and have methods to get better, but...it's hardly the same.

[Or so he might have thought once. And now that he's said it, is it possible the Porter is just a science so advanced no one could ever believe it to be real? Is he stepping into those who would sneer at Copernicus? But. Here he has been told of powers, and that cannot be science. Unless he was injected with some sort of drug that caused such things to manifest, what could it be but magic?]

Here, they both seem muddled, as if they overlap. This technology is like nothing I know or has been known before. I find this makes it difficult to classify.